Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Tuesday August 30, 2011 @04:38PM
from the proprietary-software-watches-you-sleep dept.

nonprofiteer writes "Embarrassing thieves by exposing them using laptop recovery software makes for fun tech stories, but what about a case of a person being literally exposed after cops and a software company got their hands on naked photos she exchanged with her long-distance boyfriend, not realizing the machine was stolen? (She bought it for $60 so she should have known, but still). The case is going to trial in Ohio in September. The plaintiffs argue that the software company had the right to get the computer's location in order to recover it, but that it should not have intercepted the nude photos and shared those with the cops. Seems like a legitimate complaint and the plaintiffs are especially sympathetic in not realizing the device was stolen."

I bet this sets the record for the number of people that read the referenced articles.For the record, if a 48-year-old mechanic can pretend to be an 18-year-old hot CO-ED; an 18-year-old hot CO-ED can pretend to be a 52-year-old school teacher.

Which is excellent if you don't mind doing time for contempt of court and evidence tampering. Not to mention wiretap violations. When it comes to matters like this, you have to turn over all the evidence, not just the subset that makes your client look good.

Why would someone buy a laptop from a crackhead on the street corner when you could buy one for the same price legit that comes with stuff like tech support and a lack of cops busting down your door a week later? You're basically trading money for risk when buying from a fence.

According to the Forbes article, one of the arresting police officers was "prudish" and found her naked pics "disgusting". The proper retort to this: keep your thoughts to yourself, dude. It's none of your business whether her photos are disgusting to you or not. She did nothing illegal by taking naked pics of herself. End of story. Sigh.

I am surprised that so many people are saying the low price of the laptop matters. I have bought both laptop and desktop computers legitimately for that price. I've sold people old computers of mine for less. Hell, I've *given* people computers I don't use. I of course did not RTFA and maybe this is a top of the line laptop bought in a dark alley, but $60 does not cry "obviously stolen" to me.

I can see it now in the police interview room..... I swear officer, how was I to know that a next to new $800 laptop with no manuals or documentation purchased of some crack user on the street for $60 was stolen.

Trust me she knew it was stolen and she is blowing smoke up everyones proverbial.

did you read article, said laptop had to be repaired first. care to change your point of view, or if not I have $60 thinkpad T23 laptop for you to buy that needs screen, hardrive, memory, networking module and battery pack.

Via copyright. It has been established that the person taking the photos holds the copyright on those photos. Not the person who owns the camera, or the bought the resources (film, storage, etc), but the person who took the pictures. So if she took the pictures... she could fight to get the images taken down the site, but copyright isn't well respected among many online users (or so I'm told *looks around*). If somebody got the images and redistributed them, it would be very hard to shut them all down.

Being as a pawn shop or other used hardware store would likely pay the owner of a laptop about that much for a used machine, it isn't necessarily odd that a private seller would ask that of a possible private buyer.

The ethics of paying for a device suspected to be stolen aside, buying a system and not wiping it is practically criminal negligence. Even if everything about the purchase is completely legitimate, it may have been equipped with all sorts of surveillance software by its previous owners, whether deliberately or through malware infections.

Most comments have focused on the question of whether or not a reasonable person could consider $60 an appropriate price to pay for a used laptop, and whether the device was functional at the time of sale. Indeed, even the defendants raised this point. However, I think this is not really getting at the heart of the matter.

While I don't know how the legal system actually handles such cases, I think that the proper outcome is that the plaintiff (the woman) should win her case against law enforcement (but not the recovery company), and be entitled to damages. Then I think the recovery company and law enforcement should win the case against the thief who stole the laptop. But I also think they should win an additional claim against the thief for reselling a device with monitoring software on it, thereby exposing the woman to this situation. If there isn't a statute to cover this, there should be. It should go a bit like this:

1. If you steal an electronic device and resell it, you are 100% liable for any invasion of privacy that results from that sale due to attempts to track and recover the device, regardless of whether or not you are aware of any recovery software on the device.2. If you own a device and resell it, you are 100% liable for any invasion of privacy that results from that sale if you installed tracking/monitoring/recovery software.3. If you own a device and resell it, you are NOT liable if someone else has installed monitoring software without your knowledge.

The reasoning as to why we would want to (partly) indemnify parties using the remote tracking software in the course of recovering a device, is because they need to gather as much identifying information as possible, and that includes private, personal information. The tracking company in this case acted appropriately given the circumstances, because while the plaintiff didn't know the laptop was stolen, the company had every reasonable suspicion that she was the thief. Relaying whatever evidence they could find--including nude images--is the logical consequence of that investigation. What would be unreasonable is if the tracking company published the images on the internet as a way to shame the thief--to my understanding, this did not occur. The problem in this case is that law enforcement behaved inappropriately by commenting on those images.

I mean come on. Who doesn't know that cops lie all the time and that you don't believe one fucking word they say without written confirmation. Not only that but the Supreme court has ruled numerous times that Cops can lie all they want as long as they don't engage in the very specific situation of entrapment.

And then if they do have the warrant and you don't comply because you ask to see it first you get charged with resisting arrest and obstructing justice.

Some lies being told to a suspect, I'm fine with, but lying about having a warrant crosses the line.

Seriously, since the actual owners authorized the monitoring company to have that form of access to the computer, anybody who steals it and uses it afterwards (knowingly or not) really has no legal dispute with the rightful owner and any company the owner authorized to snap screencaps and whatnot.

More importantly, anything that the stolen item is used for is potential forfeit or criminal itself. The woman was stupid enough to put nude photos of herself on a computer. Did she not expect other people to see them? She should be a lot more worried about distribution by the boyfriend or someday-ex-boyfriend than she should be by the police or the laptop recovery company.

If anything, she should consider herself lucky that the rightful owners of the computer aren't going to push for a transfer of copyri

She did not expect the authorities and 3rd party people she didn't authorize to see them.
Of course you people have no grasp of reality,

Several years ago, many people started using these new-fangled things called "cell phones". For reasons I will never understand, people who were talking into a small box with an antenna on the top of it didn't grasp the concept of "radio", and that if their little box with an antenna on the top of it could receive and reproduce sounds from a distance there might be other little boxes that could receive and reproduce the same sounds. They did not expect anyone but the person whose phone number they had dialled into the little box to actually hear what they were saying.

This was back in the days when people still had other little boxes with antennas on the top that would reproduce sounds (and marvel of marvels, even pictures!) from a distance. It's not like "radio" should be a foreign concept to anyone. And yet, to these people, it was.

What was the solution to the problem of people thinking that nobody else could hear them talking on a radio? Was it to ENCRYPT the radio signal so nobody could understand what was being said? Oh, no. The only solution was to make listening to their signals illegal, and to make it illegal for other radios to be able to receive those signals.

So today, when it is almost trivial to build wideband receivers to add functionality to radios, we have laws that force manufacturers to cut large sections out of the available coverage, even after the functions of those frequencies are changing.

What is the moral of that story? Stupid people have stupid expectations, and the stupid laws that result from bending reality to their stupid expectations are, well, stupid. Now, I will admit that giving these stupid people the legal expectation that their secret conversations were secret did improve the quality of listening that the rest of us pragmatists who already owned radios heard. When people think they cannot be overheard, they will say the darndest things.

On the subject of cell phones and radios... a few years back [3ish?] I was trying to call somebody and ended up picking up somebody else's signal. Well. I was bored, so I pretty much sat there for half an hour during lunch, listening to some guy yell at his credit card company about unauthorized charges that happened a month ago.

Scary thing was that there was a particular spot in the building where I would consistently get other phone calls.

It's a stolen laptop. "I didn't know it was stolen" is not a valid defense according to US law anymore than "I didn't know the speed limit". If she's somehow wins based on "I didn't know it was stolen" then that will make the "I didn't know" defense valid and suddenly anyone can claim "I didn't know" and get off.

She's going to lose the case. Sure the judge allowed her to proceed, but "I didn't know" is not an excuse to break the law. Besides her story doesn't really add up, buying a $60 laptop from a

Seriously, since the actual owners authorized the monitoring company to have that form of access to the computer, anybody who steals it and uses it afterwards (knowingly or not) really has no legal dispute with the rightful owner and any company the owner authorized to snap screencaps and whatnot.

I think your argument sounds a bit too much like the legal owner can do anything. That alone would be like that school that had spycam software installed on pupil's laptops, even if they're the legal owner of the laptop they or their authorized company don't have legal permission to covertly bring it into people's homes and take pictures of whatever they want. If it had been her boyfriend's pictures or co-inhabitants in the background, they might have a case. But in this case she's operating a stolen computer, it's like complaining of being photographed driving a stolen car. Secondly, securing evidence for the police is a legitimate cause, if they found this in some camera tech's private stash I might think very differently about the case. You could easily argue that nude photos could include tattoos, birthmarks or other identifying markers that may help identification. I think she's got a really bad case.

Have you ever bought second hand stuff?
How do you know that second hand stuff wasn't stolen?
In fact, you can't even know for sure in shops.

Large part of the issue here is whether the school teacher could be reasonably expected to know the laptop was stolen given the low $60 price she paid for it.

I feel no pity for criminals, but punishing somebody innocent is worse than not punishing somebody guilty.

I feel no pity for criminals, but punishing somebody innocent is worse than not punishing somebody guilty.

She's not being punished; TFA clearly states the charges against her were dropped. She's now suing Absolute and the police for violation of privacy, which is crazy because those photos were taken with the authorization of the laptop's owner and they were legitimate evidence in a criminal case.

No, she's not being punished. There'd be a case there if her pictures were posted on the internet, but they weren't. They were acquired by a company acting with the authorization of the laptop owner, and given to the police. Good luck making the case that giving evidence of a crime to the police is itself a crime. Had the police recovered the laptop, they might well have analyzed the laptop to find out who had it and found the pictures themselves. Sorry, it's unfortunate for this woman that her picture

She is being punished, her private pictures are being distributed around without her permission.

She is not being punished, she is just another victim of the original criminal who stole the laptop (assuming that she genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with a $60 laptop!). Rather than sue the police and software company - who had the authorization of the legal owner to access the laptop - she ought to be suing the person who stole it in the first place because his criminal act caused her to wrongly believe the laptop was her property and therefore to give her a false expectation of privacy.

This sounds great if you're going on a fishing expedition. Heck, we don't know what kind of evidence you might have or if you'll dispose of it, so let's come kick your door in and search through your possessions. If you've done nothing wrong, you won't have anything to worry about, right?

There are specific rules for gathering evidence. The constitution may be tattered, but it still is the law of the land and it speaks to this particular issue.

Nonsense. It's a fishing expedition if you search through my possessions looking for evidence of a crime without having any specific crime you're investigating. In other words, just pawing through my personal effects trying to find something to pin on me. That didn't happen at all in this case. This was a stolen item. The evidence specifically relates to where it is, and who has it.

The 4th amendment only stops the *state* (and police acting on their behalf) from snooping.

If someone else does the snooping you don't need a warrant.

Mind you that the police cannot *ask* someone to snoop for them, otherwise you create an agency relation that causes 4th amendment immunity to apply against whoever does the snooping.

At most the security company that peeked was guilty of invasion of privacy. Sharing it with the police, however, was not a crime, and if it turns out said photos implicate someone in a crime, the 4th amendment does not apply since the security company was not acting as an agent of the police.

This isn't wiretapping. This is like a criminal complaining that your security camera footage of them breaking into your house is somehow a violation of their rights.

Actually, this specific case is like someone believing they bought your house for $600 and then complaining your security camera caught them having sex in the pool.

And while we're here...

That's not true, while the 4th amendment only prevents the government from doing it, every state in the union has its own wiretap law on the books which bars this sort of covert surveillance.

The 4th Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, preserves the rights of citizens by limiting the power of the federal government. There is nothing in the 4th Amendment that says I cannot take steps to monitor my property to ensure it's return if/when stolen.

"every state in the union has its own wiretap law on the books which bars this sort of covert surveillance."

It is not covert if the owner gives another company permission to do it. What you are trying to argue is that if someone broke in to a house with a house alarm it is a wiretapping violation for the house alarm to sound.

And I might counter with the principle that law enforcement is only entitled to search for those things that are actually relevant to the commission of a crime. Search warrants have to be very specific. If the police think I've stolen an elephant, and they get a warrant to search my property for the elephant, they can't search my dresser drawers; there's no way an elephant would fit in there. In this case, police were looking for a stolen laptop and they somehow came into possession of naked pictures of con

The trouble was that the court found that the woman in possession of the laptop believed herself to the the legal owner. Evidently that finding affords her the legal protections afforded a legitimate owner.

Well, having now read TFA, it looks mostly like the court found only that there wasn't enough evidence to grant the defendants summary judgement... which is a long way from saying that she definitely deserved the protections of a legitimate owner.

From a quick look now, I actually did find one thing interesting. The court based its opinion primarily on the idea that the communications were being intercepted. Whether the same court would have felt as strongly if the LoJack-for-Laptops crew had simply taken pictures with the webcam is an open question.

If the rightful owner of the computer can demonstrate that fact, the police probably wouldn't even need a warrant. They'd be acting on behalf of the legitimate owner of the computer.

Mind you, that's probably not a good idea for the legitimate owner, as if they've done anything shady then they'd essentially be waiving their right to fourth amendment privacy by granting access to the police, but since in this case a third-party company is involved that acts as a buffer.

Mind you, that's probably not a good idea for the legitimate owner, as if they've done anything shady then they'd essentially be waiving their right to fourth amendment privacy by granting access to the police

This is why you must always maintain a minimum standard of shadiness that can be readily explained away, thus hiding the real shadiness.

That's true, but there are laws (rather than amendments) preventing private parties from snooping as well. For example: wire tapping, breaking and entering, and perhaps even some anti-voyeurism statutes as well. In computer related situations there are even additional laws like that federal anti-hacking law.

Further, as you somewhat noted, the 4th amendment kicks in if they are acting as an agent of the police... However, that does not simply mean if the police _ask_, but if the party is determined to be w

The security company can *NOT* be an agent of the police. They are absolutely *NOT* acting on behalf of the police. They could care less about the police and what the police will or won't do. The security company is acting on behalf of the rightful owner of the laptop. If the owner of the laptop said send me the information and I'll take care of the issue from here, then that is exactly what the security company would have done. I would bet that in fact is exactly what the security company did. The owner sa

They did use it. This was a separate lawsuit that was filed by the woman who bought the laptop from the thief. The thief was arrested and charged as you would expect. The woman however, did not know it was stolen and she in turn had explicit video conferences with her boyfriend using the stolen laptop (again unbeknownst to her that it was stolen). Because of this, she was deemed to have a reasonable and objective expectation of privacy. They found that although the company tracking the laptop had the right to obtain such information as IP address and geographical location, they went too far in collecting the contents of the private communications between the girlfriend and her boyfriend.

From TFA:

In so many words, the court was saying that Absolute went too far in collecting the contents of the communications being made on the stolen computer. Had the information collection stopped at IP addresses and other non-content information, the remote tracking efforts may not have run afoul of the ECPA.

I don't see how there is going to be a Constitutional violation here at all. Exactly which amendment of the Constitution was violated and by whom? Unlawful search and seizure? Well the police didn't do the search and seizure of the laptop, the security company did. The laptop wasn't her's so it wasn't unlawful. So exactly where is the unlawful part? Was her privacy violated? Maybe, but I don't think so since everything was done in an attempt to find out who was using the laptop, to make sure they got the ri

If you read the story, the person who bought the laptop, bought it from a student at her school. The problem was, the school was "alternative education" school, which in many cases is for young criminals and delinquents. If it is as I suspect, the teacher should have EXPECTED it to be stolen, and reported it. Secondly, the teacher should NEVER have bought the laptop from a student, as that is a breach of propriety and proper boundaries between student and teachers.

Mod parent up. Fuck that girl. She screwed up a) for buying a $60 laptop, b) for not wiping the laptop clean before using it, c) for putting nude pics on said unwiped laptop, and d) for suing someone over this whole thing which is only going to make more people interested in the pics.

No, it's not an illegal wiretap as it was authorized by the legal owner of the equipment, just like your employer most likely monitors all activity you perform online and is within their legal right because you are using their equipment. Furthermore ignorance is not a defense against receiving stolen property in all jurisdictions, only some.

Your employer also requires you to sign a waver saying that you aknowlege that anything you do can and will be monitored by the company on their machines. Most companies even have the message pop up via the login script saying the same thing. There is a reason for it, you can monitor people all day long, as long as they are aware of it. If they have no way to know the computer isn't really theirs, you don't have those rights. If your company gave you a laptop, told you it was a perk and no information of it

Doesn't matter, it's still a violation of her rights. Just because the original owner authorized it, does not mean that they have the right to violate the wiretap laws involved. And in a case like this, the employees that opted to obtain the extra images ought to be prosecuted for doing the illegal wiretapping. Had they just stopped with the location of the device, they would be fine legally.

I realize that people don't understand that, but this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment. Just because it's your property doesn't mean that you get to wiretap it all you like.

It isn't that the original owner authorized it, it's that the owner authorized it.

Every bit of data (in the literal sense) on the computer is potentially evidence of the crime and the criminals.

As to your line, "this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment.", your argument is a straw man. It's a more accurate analogy to say that a landlord or property owner put a camera in their own space that no one else was entitled to live in, and then that camera caught proof of unau

As to your line, "this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment.", your argument is a straw man. It's a more accurate analogy...

The term "straw man" refers to a logical fallacy, not an inaccurate analogy. In this particular case, whether the analogy proves accurate or not seems to be a matter of law, to be decided by the court.

I realize that people don't understand that, but this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment. Just because it's your property doesn't mean that you get to wiretap it all you like.

It is different, at least legally. Cameras in places where people have the expectation of privacy are explicitly prohibited by statute in several states. See The First Amendment Handbook [rcfp.org] under "State hidden camera statutes."

Here's an analogy: Drinking is legal. Driving is legal. Doing both simultaneously is not, because it's explicitly legislated against; the which fact does not invalidate the legality of drinking or driving generally.

Doesn't matter, it's still a violation of her rights. Just because the original owner authorized it, does not mean that they have the right to violate the wiretap laws involved. And in a case like this, the employees that opted to obtain the extra images ought to be prosecuted for doing the illegal wiretapping. Had they just stopped with the location of the device, they would be fine legally.

The owner of the device authorized lojack to gather evidence by accessing the owner's device. Just because somebody else possessed the device doesn't change who the owner is. And these photos were legitimate evidence because they were pictures of the people who possessed the stolen laptop.

I realize that people don't understand that, but this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment. Just because it's your property doesn't mean that you get to wiretap it all you like.

Totally different. When I rent an apartment, I sign an agreement with my landlord which basically gives me the right to treat the apartment as my own so long as I do not damage it, bother the neighbors, etc. A more app

The knowingly is the grey area here it can't be proven either way yet, and certainly couldn't when the pictures were taken and investigated. I do have to agree on the borderline legallity of the situation. Tim thief steals a laptop from joe schmoe, imidiately takes it straight to the pawn shop. Joe had software on the laptop to record and send video to himself whenever something happened. Sarah smith buys the laptop from the pawn shop, the software records her undressing in the privacy of her own bedroom.

Pretty much came here to say the same thing. There is no way a reasonable person would think that there wasn't something fishy about buying a working laptop from one of their students for $60. Especially when you work at an "alternative high school". That's feel-good code for a school that has a student body made up of juvenile delinquents. I know a few teachers in that career path and none of them would be dumb enough to buy anything at all from their students. If one of them tried, they'd say, "Dude,

1. She was a substitute teacher. Nothing at all says that this is the type of school or the type of student she typically deals with.

2. The laptop was not working. The article does not go into detail about what was wrong with it, but it does explicitly state she was told it was "messed up" and then "got it fixed." The second article states it was "non-functioning."

3. You state that you "guess it was one of those $250 specials or a couple years ol

My local goodwill has similar prices on PCs etc... never seen a laptop at that price, but I wouldn't be shocked to. Pawn shops and desperate students you could expect similar, particularly if the laptop is very old. I still fail to see the arguement, she bought it cheap she had to know it was stolen. Secondly there is the fact that dozens of people have looked at the pictures before they tracked the laptop down and learned the price it sold for. It isn't so much an issue of whether or not she is inocent or

Greetings and Salutations.... According to the story, the student told her it was broken, and he had been given a new one. It also states that she had to get it fixed. There are no details on HOW it was broken or fixed, alas. Add to that the concept of a "good faith purchase" that can be at least a partial shield against prosecution. Putting all this together, it is possible that she "should have known" it was stolen, and, perhaps in a perfect world, she would hav

She was told that it wasn't working, and it wasn't. I wouldn't hazard even that much on a non-functioning computer which may only turn out to have scrap value.I've also seen people give away machines which they think are broken beyond repair (and so only have scrap, or cannibalisation value) which actually only have one broken component, and replace them with new ones.

I conclusion I can quite see someone thinking their machine is broken, buying a new one (or having a new one bought for them), and trying to